Video conferencing systems are becoming commonly used to conduct meetings between participants who are geographically separated. With a video conferencing system, an audio and video signal are transmitted over a telephonic link to be reproduced at a remote video conferencing system so that parties can see and hear each other.
Modern video conferencing systems are typically configured to "autoanswer" an incoming telephone call. Thus, if the system is turned on, it will automatically answer a call placed to a telephone number associated with the system. This allows a calling party to set-up a video conference call with a receiving party without the receiving party having to manually answer the phone. While this feature is generally a convenience, it could be used to surreptitiously monitor a video conferencing facility. For example, if a calling party knows a called party's video conference phone number, the calling party could easily place a call into the called party's conference system without their knowledge. The calling party could easily project a black image to make the other party's video monitor appear to be "off" and could also use a mute feature to prevent audio signals at the calling party's site from being transmitted to the called party. Furthermore, the calling party could use an "audio-only" feature which makes an audio connection but prevents a video connection and the mute feature to prevent "audio-only" signals at the calling party's site from being transmitted to the called party. Thus, the calling party could effectively eavesdrop on all meetings in the room that day without detection.
One approach to preventing this potential intrusion problem has been to ask that users visually check status indicator lights found on a modem of the video conferencing system at the time they enter the video conference room. However, these indicator lights are typically hidden in a cabinet that holds a monitor and the rest of the video conferencing system, thus requiring more than a mere glance at the system upon entering the room to check for any intrusions. In addition, many people simply forget to check that the video conferencing system might be on prior to beginning a meeting.
Given the ease with which security of a video conference room might be compromised, there exists a need for a video conferencing system which intelligently prevents or alerts a user to any unauthorized intrusions on a conference room.